Broken Ghost

by Niall Griffiths

  —How’s it going, Cowley boy?

  It’s Stiff Richards. Hates being called that, he does, so that’s exactly what A do: —Not bad, Stiff, not bad. Busy night?

  Ee pulls out into-a road. —Steady. Ome, is it?

  —Straight home, Stiff, aye.

  —Not pubbin tonight then?

  —Jest av been. Only the one. Early night for me.

  —Not like yew. Yew feeling okay?

  —Never better, Stiff.

  We call him that cos he useta balance trainers on his hard-on at school. In-a changing rooms like, iss was. Standin yur with a shoe hanging off his stiffy. Useta experiment with different shoes, like; rugby boots and stuff. An army boot once, one-a them that Denny Jones useta wear all-a time. Said ey were his grandad’s, from-a war. Wonder what an ex-soldier would think if he knew his boots were gunna one day be dangling from someone’s bellend in public. Well, what did we fight-a war for, mun? Beat the Nazis for-a freedom to swing shoes from our dicks if we want to, didn’t we?

  We drive up through Trefechan an-a town opens all up below. Alla bright lights an-a library on-a hill opposite like a massive fuckin bunker an-a sea under-a moon. Looks nice, it does. Stiff drops me off an A pay him an go into me block an-a lift is fucked again so a take-a stairs an on-a floor below mine A see-a letter box go up on-a Morris’s flat. Two eyes starin out. Ey see me an en a flap shuts again but A go over to it an lift it up with me fingers an shout through it:

  —Nos da, Mr and Mrs Morris! Cysgu da, cariads!

  Nosy pair-a ole twats. Fuck em anyway. In me own flat it’s dark but-a telly’s still on an it stinks-a fags an oven chips. She’s conked out on-a couch, belly hangin out, empty cider bottles on-a floor around er. Snorin like a rhino. Er belly’s all floppy an yellow and yer’s some kind-a stuff, crust, around er gob and A don’t wanna look at it so A go in-a bedroom an roll me weights out from under-a bed, dumb-bells like, an do a few curls. Jester few, like, each arm. No fuckin wonder she miscarried, aye? All em fags an cider an all em fuckin oven pizzas an chips an sausages she eats. No unborn babby is gonna survive all that shite fallin down on top-a it.

  Am lookin out-a window an it’s steamin up cos-a me pantin breath. Heavy bloody weights, ey are. A can see alla lights of-a town all kind-a blurred an it looks like yur’s all mist outside but it’s jest me breath on-a inside. The glass is warm. Gonna be a hot summer, iss is. An next month Av got to deck some Quinn cos-a fuckin Lavin’s bust his ribs an cos A need to make some fuckin money an Av got to give a fat bird one up the trumper filled with fried chicken turds while her friggin hubby watches an wanks himself soft in-a corner. An why? Cos he’s a mate. My fuckin life, mun. This is fuckin it. How did A get yur?

  Anyway. That’s all next month. Fucks to it all till then.

  Even in-a bedroom A can hear her snorin so A get a blanket from-a wardrobe an go back in-a front room. Daft fat lazy cow but still she might get a chill. Still cold in-a night-time, it is, up yur on iss hill like, an-a damp’s all through iss room an she’ll catch her friggin death without a blanket an then Mister fuckin Muggins yur would have to do more than he usually does. Mix fuckin Lemsips an alla rest of it. So a put-a blanket over her an tuck one side in. She makes a noise like a growly dog an turns onner side. A turn-a telly off an go to-a bathroom to give me teeth a brush. Got through another day, mun, aye.

  FUCK BUDDIES

  THIS IS THE time when IT usually sets in, when I’m back home after dropping Tom off at the school. Around half nine. After I’ve dropped Tomos and I’ve walked home either through Penparcau or across the playing fields by the river like I did this morning, this is when IT starts to creep in – the usual feeling. Except it’s not a feeling, really, not an emotion, more the absence of feeling – a kind of emptiness. No colour. As if I’ve been drained of everything. Without the Citalopram blocking it then maybe it’d turn into the thing they called Depression but which was more like constant terror; the medication’s probably keeping that at bay, and I’d sooner the feeling of emptiness than that stinking black fucking thing. But isn’t it strange the way the mind works cos gradually I realise that this morning, that nothing-feeling isn’t there. There is the absence of an absence and it’s, well, what? Just one thing: a good feeling. Cos it’s A Feeling. It’s alright.

  Dig and bridge and wild.

  Them words, them three words.

  I’m standing at me front window with a cup of tea and looking out at the river, the Rheidol, flowing past, the new footbridge going over it, some people on it, a feller with a walking stick and a woman wearing some kind of uniform. The sun is out. The river is carrying a big branch out to the sea, into the harbour on me left. I heard recently that otters have returned to the river; it was in the Cambrian News. If I stand here long enough, I might see one. I would love to see an otter. That new bridge still looks flimsy to me and why people choose to use it instead of the old stone one I really don’t know. I’m scared to use it and I’ve never once used it to cross the river; I’ll walk the extra distance to the stronger stone one and cross into town by that. There’s a word for this, the fear of crossing bridges, and I looked it up once: gephyrophobia, although that probably refers to a fear of all bridges rather than just a specific one. I’m liking the taste of me tea and I think I might have a biscuit; there’s some KitKats in the kitchen, a multipack cos they’re one of Tom’s favourites. I hope the postie brings the housing-benefit cheque and I hope the other benefits have gone into my account cos I’m fucked if they haven’t. He needs some new shoes, Tom does, but his grandparents, my folks, have said they’ll get him some and I need to go and see them soon but it’s one bastard of a bus ride to Trefenter. I’ll go shopping later. Lidl for vegetables. Pay the next instalments of the bills.

  God, look at this: this is me, feeling, thinking. There’s stuff going on inside me. I’m standing here at the window but today I am not hollow. Today there is a lot of stuff going on inside me. Thoughts and things. Emotions. This is the way I should be, a mixture of things; not always happy, not always sad, not always scared. A big mix of things. This is what it is to be normal.

  And this is the way I’ve been feeling since that crap little rave thing. Since I came down off the mountain. Since I saw that glow in the sky with the figure inside it that was a woman. Three words I heard, but for some reason they weren’t in a woman’s voice, nor a man’s, really, they were just in the air, and those words were ‘dig’ and ‘bridge’ and ‘wild’. Don’t know whether the other two, that nutter Cowley and that scouse lad, heard the words as well and I don’t care if they did or didn’t, but I do wonder how they’re feeling now, since that morning – if they’re feeling like me. Which is how? How am I feeling now? The only way I can describe it is: I now feel that the river that runs past the front of my house is there to be looked at. That’s the only way I can explain it.

  Doing the dishes in the kitchen I turn the radio news on and listen to some posh twat going on about cutting tax credits for single mothers and why should benefit claimants be able to live in houses that people in work can’t afford? I explain to him, aloud like, that I moved into this house when I was working full-time and it wasn’t my fault that the shop had to close and that maybe it’d still be open if rents had’ve been capped instead of now sitting empty with letters piling up behind the door. What does a man like that know about a woman like me? This I say aloud, and instead of anger and disgust – which is what I’d usually feel at the sound of this man’s voice – I feel only lucky and grateful that I’m able to live in such a good place and bring Tomos up here, next to a river in which he might see an otter. God, what’s wrong with me? No, fuck that, what’s right with me? Look at the dishes, clean on the draining board. I flick the radio off, cutting that fucking voice off mid-whinge, and go upstairs to run the bath. This is not wrong. To be feeling like this can only be right.

  Dig, bridge, wild. Three words which I’ve thought a lot about in recent days and the significance of two of them I think I might
know but one remains a puzzle:

  Wild.

  I run the hot tap. Put in some bubbles, one of them mad new flavours they have: hibiscus weed and coriander root. Smells lovely.

  Dig.

  I take my clothes off in the bedroom. It still smells sleepy in here, that kind of milky whiff that bedrooms have in the morning. Slept well last night, I did; I sat talking with Tom until he nodded off and then I watched a bit of telly and then I went to bed and I put my head on the pillow and I fell asleep. I did not lie awake staring into the blackness and closing my eyes against the shapes in it, I did not sit up till dawn watching crap on the TV and going fucking mad. No, I slept and dreamt about lakes and submarines and I woke up feeling good.

  I turn the hot tap off and run the cold, swish it around with my hand. I put Radio Wales on, just for the background noise; I don’t really listen to the words or the music, it’s just nice to have a friendly voice in the room. I get in the bath. It’s perfect.

  He called himself Weasel, Tom’s dad did. Never did find out his proper name cos he said he didn’t have one anymore cos he was really a weasel in human form. Otherkin. This he said because he was something of a dickhead, but he might’ve been right; I mean, he was a bit like a weasel, if truth be told – sneaky, rodential. A New Age traveller and a novice smackhead. Self-deluded; the filth he lived in he saw as getting back to nature, which is what people like him call being bone fucking idle. People can be as mochyn as they want but don’t dress it up as political protest. Had dreads, he did. Of course. A white boy with dreads and that should’ve been a warning sign in itself but what’s done is done and sometimes the hole inside me gets too wide. Too fucking wide. So I shagged him at some outdoor party at Ynyslas sands and he knocked me up in the dunes. Didn’t see him for a few months, and then I did, in town, and I told him I was preggers and he legged it altho someone told me that was because he was gonna get stabbed so he had to do one but about that I have my doubts.

  But anyway: dig and wild. The weasel growing inside me.

  Which is what I thought, that I had a little weasel forming inside my body. In bad moments this would scare me sick, and I’d have images of this little thrashing thing inside my body, all evil eyes and sharp teeth. In my good moments, which there weren’t so many of then, this would please me; a wild and untamed thing inside that I wanted to stay inside cos as soon as it came out it would lose its wildness and the world would tame it the moment it took its first breath. But he is what he is, Tomos, my boy; bright and bloody brilliant. Has his dad’s eyes, he does, that blue in the middle like a bullseye with the ring around it of darker blue, almost black.

  So, aye, those two words; now I know what they mean. Or I think I know. They join together into a sort of instruction.

  It’s so quiet in here but I want it quieter so I reach and turn the radio off. The water dripping from the tap goes plink and ploik and I can hear a bird singing outside. Blackbird, I think. Bold, those birds, them and robins; there’s one or two out in the garden that’ll eat from my hand. The first time Tomos saw that when he was still a toddler he jumped up and down in delight. Literally jumped for joy, and scared the birds off, and then fell over; he hadn’t developed a proper sense of balance by then. The joy in him, tho. And the feeling of the robin on my palm, barely there.

  I run my hands down my calf and don’t feel any stubble so the razor can stay where it is. Like a womb, this bath is. Chipped polish on me toes which I can neither be arsed cleaning off or redoing. No point, because who’s gonner see? Only the Tomster and he doesn’t care one way or the other. But being clean, the feel of scrubbed skin – that is nice. I soap meself all over and then lie back in the water to rinse the suds away. Close my eyes. Drift off. Slept well last night I did but I can feel meself drifting off, the way your thoughts start to go a bit weird, funny shapes and faces. And I’ve got stuff to do so I sit up quick and pour some cold water straight from the tap into my cupped hands and dip my face in it and then I pull the plug and get out. Sunlight comes in a slanty beam through the window and I stand in it to be warm as I dry meself. I feel so calm. Even tho I am full of things, thoughts and notions, full of things all whirling around I feel so calm and peaceful.

  And there is a wildness inside you to which you must dig down. Not, like, unearth it; don’t dig it up, or anything like that. Just recognise it is there and dig down to it and talk to it and let it guide you. Kind of like: the worm in the soil is more important than the car on the tarmac on top of the soil, on top of the worm. Like: long to go to South America to see a real jaguar rather than want to own a car named after it. The beetle and the spider, these things mean more than a bank account in the black or saving for a pension. And what they are is inside you as well because there is a part of you that has wings and claws and your time here is so short. You have no territory. You must live in the now, like cats do, or the bats that come out from under the bridge when the sun goes down. You leak – I mean you give out fluids, all kinds of gunk, and that means you’re alive. Living things are smelly; living things stink. Your life is a miracle and you need to remember that every morning as soon as your eyes open. What you are told is meaningful means absolutely nothing, it’s simply a way for the powerful to hold on to power and this is the most shameful thing there is. It is one of the worst ways a human being can ever be. That prick on the radio earlier, he spoke about people who Do The Right Thing, like that, with capitals, by which he meant what he wants people to do which is work at a job they loathe for five decades and save for a pension and then quietly die. That is not me. Dig and wild, dig and wild. The boiling thing, the weasel, inside you. Inside me there is a wild thing and yet I feel so calm and peaceful. Otters have come back to live in the river. The lowest point of humanity is golf and a Mondeo in the drive that every Sunday afternoon you must wash in the smells of roasting meat.

  The river is there to be looked at. This is what I think she meant by those words. Kind of. And God it’s working. This peace and calm I’m feeling, I have never felt this way before or if I have then it was only for a brief moment and I forgot it in a second.

  The lowest point of humanity is golf and a Mondeo in the drive … God that’s funny. Made meself laugh, I have. But bridge, tho; that’s puzzling me. I don’t have a clue about that one. Well. Just trust. Just trust that stuff will be made clear and if it isn’t then so what? No, that’s not right. There’s no ‘so what’ here anymore. Not since the woman floating in the glow and the three words she said in a different voice. ‘So what’ has gone now, after her.

  I check me kitchen cupboards and fridge for flour and eggs and stuff then make a little list of what I need to buy to make T’s very favourite biscuits, his bestest ever, the ones with the raisins and the oats, then I get proper dressed in the jeans and the Uggs and then I leave the house. I still remember, and probably always will, how this once made me recently feel, stepping out of the house and closing the door behind me – shaking with fucking fear. Not today, tho; today I can feel the way the jeans cling to me legs and hips and arse moving as I walk. Me hair’s still wet and I can smell it all clean. I see two swans on the river, just drifting. I watch them sail past beneath me and as they do I see the way their feet move under the water, their orange flapping feet. So, what, graceful above the water but going ten to the dozen underneath it. Pretty birds, aye. One found a month or so ago with a crossbow bolt through its neck but I’m not gonner think about that today. It’s recovering anyway in the RSPCA. They removed the bolt and it’s gonner be okay. Fuckin sicko tho whoever would do such a thing but I will not think about it today. I will not let it into my head. Except it’s already there, innit? Well, then – push it out, woman.

  I cross the old stone bridge and then I turn right when I’m over it and walk to Lidl, past the roundabout, past the train station. There are closer shops but none cheaper. I only need a few bits but I’m in a queue for ages so I let the swans drift into the space behind my eyes and I let meself enjoy the attentions of
the older bloke in the queue opposite who keeps looking at me when his wife isn’t looking at him. He’s not a rapist, I tell meself, not a stalker; he’s not gonner follow me home. There is no danger in him and there’s no need to react as if there is. He’s just a bloke, that’s all. You’ve drawn his eye and that’s all and that’s alright.

  Me phone goes outside. I check the screen: JOHNNY MOBILE. Thought I’d deleted him. Fuck. I answer it anyway:

  —What?

  —Ems, where are you?

  —Lidl car park.

  —Heading home?

  —Yes.

  —The kid at school?

  —It’s Thursday so yes he is. I tell him a bit of a fib to put him off: —I’m going home for a bath.

  —Aw brilliant. You’ll be all clean, then. I’ll be round in a bit, yeah? Got you something, I yav.

  —I’m gonner have a bath, Johnny. Just told you. Don’t—

  —See ya in a bit.

  Bastard hangs up. Unbelievable. I call him back but it goes straight to voicemail. Fucking unbelievable. Not in the mood for him today, I’m not. Want to go home and bake biscuits and give my M and D a ring. Read a book or watch a film. In the mood just for my own company today and I do not want him in my house with his stupid fin haircut and needs. Should’ve ignored the call. God we make mistakes.

  Dig and wild, dig and wild. That glow.

  I buy a paper and go for a cup of tea in the little caff by the station. Take me time over it. Maybe he’ll get fed up waiting and I can’t see him outside my house when I’m crossing the bridge but soon as me key’s in the door he appears from behind the riverside wall. Oh God. He’s tipped the spikes of his hair white and he’s wearing a sleeveless t-shirt to show off the tiger stripe and Celtic tats that every fuckin soup-for-brains idiot without a personality has got these days. Me heart sinks. How could I have ever shagged this man? God we make mistakes. And sometimes the holes within get too wide.